not "disappointed" -- wrong word -- but depressed and unhappy about the media treatment of this.

The Enron case could, if handled even *approximately* correctly, provide a lever to allow us to address a number of IMO structural problems with stock ownership and company direction. I think Marx was, in general, full of shit, but his observations about the "crisis of capitalism" seem to be on the mark; the way around it would be universal stock ownership and free distribution as dividends of the profits.

I definitely agree with the notion of restricting the total amount of any single company's stock -- not just the employer's! -- in a 401(k) plan to 20-25%. That would also lead to the cash-bonus system, because if the employer's stock rises to that amount, the only way to add "matching" contributions would be either cash or stock in a different company. I'd add a requirement that the 401(k) management company and its management team would not be allowed to have a business, contractural, familial, or sexual relationship with anyone on the employer's company's management.

But, while I see discussion of this sort of provision -- some I agree with, some I don't -- on fora such as this, the national media aren't even considering anything substantive. They've all got on their "Get Bush!" t-shirts, and spinning any and every incident into a way to attack the Republicans and the President. This is not to say the Republicans and the President don't need to be attacked, over this or any other issue -- free speech and all that -- but concentrating on that aspect to the exclusion of anything else is going to lose us the opportunity to make badly needed changes, and probably won't even get Bush, since IMO any involvement by the President and his support team in the problems has been minimal and as innocent as any politician can get.

any interruption longer than a few seconds from car crashes and "all news is local". What does bother me is seeing intelligent people (as here [well, there have to be a few :-)] ) wasting time on that glitzy BS rather than keeping their eye on the ball.

Marx was right about a lot of things. I compare him to the physicians he was contemporary to: diagnosis done pretty well, prognosis within tolerance, prescription -- leeches? arsenic cocktails? We have learned a bit, since.

And I'd be prepared to argue that the Corporation -- which is an abstraction, not something concrete -- is the next form of Government, and is in fact the means whereby Marx's prescription could be brought about. Consider: the corporation is not exclusive, and corporations can interpenetrate one another and governments. It's simply more flexible, and flexibility wins over rigidity in most cases. The Workers should own the Means of Production. Well, duh. What's common stock for? The people who invented it weren't thinking that way. They saw it from a different angle, but that doesn't mean what they saw was the entire elephant.

Today's implementations won't get us there, but in many ways the changes necessary to start moving in that direction would be to the advantage of the corporations and their officers, at least at first. If stocks were owned in dribs and drabs by individuals, instead of in huge blocks by speculators and "funds", the stock market would be a lot less volatile -- and the volatility of the stock market is a big contributor to the appallingly short-term attitude of planners. Hey, I've got a suggestion there: No corporation should own voting stock in another. Now there's a reform for ya.

But no, people are focusing on the scandals and getting the money. The original reason Governments allowed Corporations to exist was financial. At the time, no reliable mechanism existed for collecting taxes on large numbers of individuals; the bookkeeping didn't exist. Therefore the Corporation, which collected money from individuals and aggregated it; tax that, the job's easier. As a nice bonus, you could tax people you didn't govern -- if somebody in India bought tea, a bit of that came back to Whitehall when the East India Company filed its tax return. And still today, when it's time to "balance the budget", somebody will always suggest higher corporate taxes, forgetting that every penny the Corporation has came, in the medium and long term, from its customers.

I do not think the current crop of corporate mangers are angels. Quite the contrary; a few of them need to be treated like British admirals pour encourager les autres. But taking the easy target is allowing them to get away with it, and that needs to be talked about. As do many things.

Instead it's car crashes and Get Bush! When they Get Bush and somebody else gets elected, it'll be car crashes and Get Whoever! Ultimately it's f*ing boring.